OT: Summer Reading
 

I just got back from the local used bookstore and picked up:

The Card: Collectors, Con Men, and the True Story of History's Most Desired Baseball Card by Michael O'Keefe and

Card Sharks: How Upper Deck Turned a Child's Hobby into a High-Stakes, Billion-Dollar Business by Pete Williams

What are you reading this summer?

Jeff

Dickens' "Hard Times"

Barney Hoskyns' "The Band"

naturally I would recommend my own book, "Joy in Mudville."

I'm reading Phil Garry's collection of "100 Greatest T206 Threads."

David McCullough: 1776 and John Adams.

50 Shades of Grey trilogy. LOL

Gibson's Last Stand: The Rise, Fall, and Near Misses of the St. Louis Cardinals, 1969-1975 — it's a good read

I've been reading Charles Bukowski's Hollywood. People consider it to be his weakest novel but I'm liking it so far.

Also have been reading John Fante's The Wine of Youth.

If you've never Fante I have to say you're missing out. I consider him to be the greatest American writer of all time. Check out Ask The Dust or Dreams From Bunker Hill.

OT
 

I have not read Fante, but I cannot believe there is an American writer greater than Faulkner.

AVOID the Al Stump Ty Cobb biography.

The guy forged Ty Cobb's journal with similar handwriting. How creepy is that...

Wow....good luck. John Adams is a great book (watch the miniseries after you read it). 1776 is absolutely brutal to get through, but still great in its own way. Considering those books are about the birth of societies, I would also recommend "Guns, Germs, and Steel" as a conclusion tale.

Im reading "A team for America: The Army-Navy Game that Rallied a Nation"....Go Figure.

I've started the fictional T206 Wagner find story, The Marinolli Treasure by Hal Lewis, a nice light read.

I'm reading past issues of the TV Guide.

Banzai Babe Ruth by Rob Fitts--about the 1934 tour of Japan by a group of major leaguers.

Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine, and the Murder of a President' by Candice Millard--about Garfield's assassination

more to come--but these two are midstream.

It depends on what you like to read. If you like to have a good time while you're reading and like a laugh on nearly every page, then you'll like Fante. He's got a really unusual style. The prose jumps off the page and has a poetic quality to it even though for the most part he's using popular vocabulary and slang. He's very easy to read and relate to. I consider William Faulkner to be kind of a bore and not at all fun to read. They do share a similarity though. Fante's novels are all about one character, Arturo Bandini. Faulkners all take place in the same imagined town.

Fante also loved baseball. He brings up Nick Altrock in one of the books. I forget which one. Arturo Bandini # 1 to me.

Right now I'm in the middle of This Side of Paradise.

Next up is Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee, then I dunno what. Probably Delillo—Underworld or Libra.

As for Faulkner, his nobel prize speech is one of the best things I have ever read or heard.

A great baseball read is "Sixty Feet Six Inches". Basically it's Reggie Jackson and Bob Gibson just talking about baseball as it relates to pitcher and hitter. There is also some insight on being a black player in the 50s and 60s.

One of the most enjoyable baseball books I've read in quite a while.

You can pick it up on Amazon now for a penny plus shipping.

Reading Ty Cobbs biography which I'm half way through and think I have learned a whole new side to Cobb other than the perception given off by most in the hobby.

Also reading the Five Love Languages Singles Edition. Great read for singles and even couples. Read the original but think the singles edition covers a lot more. It even applies to friendships. A recomended read for anyone

Attachment 68164

I'm reading this one.

Legal briefs . . . and a lot of them.

Currently reading Bill Veeck: Baseball's Greatest Maverick by Paul Dickson

"Negro League Baseball - The Rise and Ruin of a Black Institution" by Neil Lanctot.

It's a great book so far focusing on the business side of Negro League ball and how the leagues struggled and fought to survive. Not as much a book about the players, games, stats and stories like others I've read. I'm still in the beginning so maybe that comes in later chapters but so far it's really good.